


Untold

by dbalthasar



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Excessive Drinking, Ignored Safeword, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21810025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dbalthasar/pseuds/dbalthasar
Summary: Some stories are best forgotten.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 18





	Untold

i.

_“Don’t give me that,” Krem says, without heat. He and Dorian are sitting in the Herald’s Rest, safe for once from rain and adventure. “You’ve never had to do without.”_

_It’s only a trick of the light that makes it look like Tevene autumn, that and the taste of cheap wine._

Dorian goes out the window with the clothes on his back and the one pair of boots he’s sure he can walk some distance in. By the second night under a hedge, he’s made half a dozen lists of the things he should have brought, and then the things he’ll make sure to bring next time. Not that there will ever be a next time. He is deadly sure of that.

On the third night, he has reached a town large enough to have an alienage and the doubtful quarter on its edge, and he is absolutely willing to trade what’s left of his virtue — or, better, his well-honed vices — for a decent meal. _You don’t know what I might do for a glass of wine_ , he says, not at all in jest, to a trader twice his age with a chipped front tooth, and the trader grins and buys him a meal and the wine and expects him to make good on his promise. Which Dorian does, with enthusiasm — he’s always liked being fucked, one more thing to turn his father scarlet with shame — and in the morning there are a few coins on the pillow for a present.

It’s a reasonable beginning, and if other nights are less successful — who’d have guessed that in Tyrsenia the boys of negotiable virtue would be organized against amateurs? — by the time he reaches Carastes he’s managed to collect enough coin to allow him a few options. He finds a cheap room, and if it’s on the top floor where the roof leaks and a gusty wind might knock the entire building sideways, it’s at least some time to breathe, and consider his next moves.

Unfortunately, everything he can think of doing next comes back to needing money, and he’s not exactly earning enough on his forays into the doubtful quarter to pay more than the next week’s rent, and that only if his new friends can be persuaded to buy him dinner as well. One would think that the months of debauchery in Asariel would have provided him with a few more marketable tricks, but he’s discovering that he’s not actually that good at being agreeable, and the ones who like sharp sauce are somewhat… unpredictable… in bed. They’re also not as inclined to generosity, which is more of a problem than the occasional bruise. Whichever way he turns, he needs help, and that means letters, begging letters, and though he manages to collect ink and paper, he finds himself uncharacteristically tongue-tied every time he starts to write. It’s easier to wander out again in search of wine and low company, and by the time he comes home again, he can’t think about much of anything at all.

_“Of course not,” he says, sharp and dismissive. “Whyever would I?”_

ii.

_Sera leans both elbows on the table. Her empty plate is pushed almost to the edge, and Dorian thinks that if she leans just a little further, she’ll knock it off. He’s not disposed to stop her. “Yeah, but mages need self-control,” she says. She’s not really drunk, just a little elevated. “Otherwise — well, I heard a story once, yeah? There was this twink of a mage, who used to hang out in one of the back rooms in Carastes. He got a little too excited finally and set the place on fire.”_

He goes upstairs with the man no one else will touch because he figures he can handle it, and besides, the man has already been generous enough with dinner and drink that he thinks there should be a handsome present waiting at the end. There’s a moment at the start where he has to say _if you ruin my shirt, you’re buying me another_ but that passes off with a laugh and some dirty talk.

But then he’s face down in the pillows with bleeding scratches down his back and thighs and this stopped being fun a long time ago. He’s hung on as long as he can, his face and the pillow wet with sweat and tears, and when the man jerks his head up again, fingers painful in his hair, he whispers his watchword. The man ignores him, and he says it more loudly — _nimis, nimis, damn it_ — but instead of stopping the man shoves his head down again, slamming his face into the pillow. _Thought you were something special_ , the man says, _you’re nothing, you’re just like the rest of them_ , and he can’t get any leverage with his wrists at the small of his back and his straining mouth is full of coarse wet cloth and lumpy feathers and he thinks for the first time that he might actually die in this shabby room. 

He calls fire then, fear and rage and what’s left of pride and desire exploding out of him in a ball of flame that knocks the man back from the bed and leaves sheets and tattered bed curtains well alight as he gasps for air and breathes stark heat. At least he’s singed the man a little, stopped him yelling for this stunned moment. He goes out the window barefoot in his ruined shirt, smoke and shouts following him, and in his garret room washes three times and wonders if he could get his velvet slippers back before he has to run.

_“How very careless of him,” Dorian says._

iii.

_Grim is lying on the flagstones at the entrance to the privy, the one that overhangs the walls so that there's always a cold draft on one's privates as a reminder that there's a thousand foot drop beneath the hole. He's passed-out drunk and snoring, and Dorian gives the Iron Bull a speaking look. They've both drunk a bit, but not so much that visiting this particular privy seemed dangerous, though Dorian is rather wishing they'd gone elsewhere. The Iron Bull shakes his head, the great horns casting multiple shadows in the torchlight._

_"You know, anywhere else somebody would have stolen every stitch he owns."_

The tiles are cold and wet and not nearly as clean as he would like, now that he has his face against them. The lamp flickers overhead, making the blue-on-blue designs waver, the little bird-shapes flap their wings and lizards lash their tails. It does nothing for the nausea, and he closes his eyes again, pressing himself onto the floor in the so-far-vain hope that it will stop swaying. He has not yet been sick, and he wonders if he would feel better if he did. Except that would involve moving, and even the idea of propping himself up on his elbows brings the bright taste of copper to the back of his throat. Maybe it would be better to go to sleep again — those are better words than "pass out again," though the latter is probably closer to the truth. These cheap baths are littered with bodies at the cold end of the night. If he can stand up later, he won't be one of them.

He opens his eyes again at the rattle of curtain rings, but it's only a servant with a bucket. She eyes him dispassionately, decides the room is clean enough, and disappears, leaving the curtain open behind her. He is cold and naked and not quite as sick as before, though he still doesn't dare lift his cheek from the tiles. He's sore, too. Someone fucked him, and he thinks he remembers some of the details, though he thought that was a different room and maybe more than one of them. Or maybe it was here, and he just doesn't remember. Probably it isn't worth remembering. He isn't hurt. Not more than bruises. 

He can't keep doing this. Only not doing this means finding someone who'd be willing to help him, and he'd have to beg for it, and… It's the same set of thoughts, swarming his brain like rats in a ship's hold. He'd come here to drown them, and it's dismaying to find that they return as soon as he is the slightest bit sober. 

By the time the servant comes around again, he is sitting up against the tiled wall, his head throbbing, but capable of movement. He sends her for his clothes and discovers that his shoes are missing. Who would steal a pair of cheap slippers, in a place like this? He walks home barefoot in the false dawn, and swears he'll send a letter this time.

_"We mustn't put temptation in Sera's way," Dorian says.  
"I never mentioned Sera," Bull protests. He takes Grim's shoulders, Dorian takes his ankles, and together they haul the snoring man toward his tent._


End file.
